Prepare an engineering handoff

Turn approved designs into an implementation packet with ambiguity called out rather than guessed.

Goal

This guide proposes a workflow to help design and engineering agree on a small, buildable slice. It is a planning pattern, not a claimed firsthand test, guarantee, or substitute for professional judgment.

Before you start

You need approved design, acceptance criteria, and named engineering owner. Do not paste passwords, API keys, health information, government identifiers, or unredacted customer/employee data into an AI service unless your organisation has explicitly approved that processing.

Input: screen links, tokens, states, and constraints.

Expected output: a handoff checklist with open questions and acceptance tests.

Suggested tool roles

Tool availability, model behavior, plan limits, and terms can change. Check each vendor's current documentation and your organisation's account settings before configuring a workflow.

Step 1: Define the decision and boundary

Write one sentence describing the decision this work must support: a handoff checklist with open questions and acceptance tests. List what is confirmed, what is unknown, and who can approve a final version. Put source links beside material claims; generated text is never the source of a claim.

Create an input packet containing screen links, tokens, states, and constraints. Remove names, direct contact details, account credentials, and any material that is not needed for this task. For example, use a source link or internal record ID in place of a pasted confidential document. State what the output must not do: it must not make a decision about a person, publish automatically, or represent an uncertain statement as confirmed.

Handoff: give the bounded brief, input packet, and source folder to the person doing the first draft. That person should be able to explain why every included item is necessary.

Task-specific procedure

For each screen, list entry point, state, validation, empty state, error state, analytics need, and acceptance check. Engineering should return open questions before estimating work rather than implementing unlabelled assumptions.

Step 2: Create a structured first pass

In Figma AI, ask for a structured first pass-not a final answer. A useful instruction is: “Use only the material below. Produce headings, an evidence table, open questions, and a draft. Label anything not supported by the material as needs verification.” Attach the source IDs next to the relevant paragraph or row.

Read the result line by line against the input packet. Delete claims that cannot be traced, and separate a useful hypothesis from a decision. The working output at this point should be a source-linked draft, not a polished asset.

Handoff: pass the draft, source links, and unresolved questions to the domain reviewer. Ask the reviewer to respond with corrections, missing context, and an explicit go/no-go on any sensitive claim.

Step 3: Review, revise, and make the deliverable

Use Claude to organise the reviewer’s changes into three groups: required corrections, choices the accountable owner must make, and optional improvements. Do not ask the model to resolve a disagreement or infer approval. The accountable owner decides which version becomes the approved working copy.

Only then use GitHub Copilot to make the requested output: a handoff checklist with open questions and acceptance tests. Keep the source-linked working copy alongside the formatted version. If a handoff changes format-for example, from notes to a deck, a prototype, or an automated message-compare the two versions for dropped qualifiers, altered numbers, and misleading visual emphasis.

If automation is part of the final step, configure a named human approval before anything is sent, published, or changes a record. Include a stop condition, an error alert, and a way to reverse a partial action without deleting the evidence trail.

Handoff: the accountable owner signs off on the final a handoff checklist with open questions and acceptance tests.

Step 4: Run human and privacy checks

Before release, confirm:

Limitations and cost caution

AI can omit context, produce plausible errors, and reflect bias in the material it is given. This workflow is unsuitable for autonomous decisions about people, regulated advice, or irreversible actions. Start with a small sample and inspect usage-based charges, generation credits, storage, and paid-seat limits before scaling.

Sources